<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Black Song by Tzalmavet</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25094884">Black Song</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tzalmavet/pseuds/Tzalmavet'>Tzalmavet</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Flute playing, Gen, Songwriting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:40:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>599</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25094884</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tzalmavet/pseuds/Tzalmavet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Snufkin discovers a very unlikely source of musical inspiration.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Black Song</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Snufkin sat without his boots on the low branch of a small tree, holding a flute, deep in thought.  The world was all black and damp, and it filled him with an inspirational sort of loneliness.  He could make a beautiful song of the weariness surrounding him, he thought.  He held the flute to his lips and dwelled upon the darkness.</p><p>His thoughts wandered to the loneliest and darkest of all things-- the Groke.  A tremor of dread went through him at the idea of her, and he cautiously blew it into the first note.  He looked around as the note drew to its end, and, finding that nobody was around him, continued playing.<br/>The notes came to his fingers with an ease that surprised Snufkin.  The song solemnly followed the Groke's solitary path, treading carefully into her icy footprints and beholding the trail of death left in their wake.  It traced her large, hill-like form-- vast, unknowable, intimidating, and it whispered with fear the hopeless lethality of her sadness.  The woods around Snufkin grew silent as he played, save for a cold wind that brought out the anxious refrains all the stronger.</p><p>Snufkin closed his eyes, submerging himself in the black.  He brought forth the darkness around him, the cold wind, the very cold that could belong to the Groke's icy grasp.  He played her fingers with his own, the tension that the sight of those appendages would bring, the terror, the pain to come!  Then he dragged the frightened song down low, swayed it drearily into the Groke's sadness and desire for her reaching out to <em>just once</em> bring her a bit of warmth.  He saw her behind his eyelids, crying out her anguish and isolation into the freezing wind, and he mirrored her cries back to her, howling such desperation through his flute that tears trickled down his cheeks.  He wondered what occasion he'd find himself playing this song that was writing itself into his brain again, this song of cold and Grokesome things.</p><p>He let the coldness wrap around him, let the song calm itself a bit as the Groke would return numbly to her search for light.  The cold was drear, exacting, snaking up his legs and making the tune shiver.  Suddenly the cold became unbearable, a frightful pain bit into Snufkin's toes and forced the tune into one high-pitched keening note.</p><p>Snufkin's eyes snapped open, and as the darkness swam away he saw that right in front of him was the Groke herself.  Her body-- a great black shape that barely resembled the body of a living creature at all-- was stretched up to his level in the tree.  She was holding his paw between her fingers, but it felt to Snufkin as though she were gripping his whole body; Snufkin saw the fog of his breath blowing around the mouthpiece of his flute, still screaming, and realized with horror he couldn't bring himself to stop it. His blood ran like ice up his leg all the way around his throat, choking him in place.</p><p>And the Groke was <em>smiling</em> at him.  Her small yellow eyes stared right through him like a dead animal's, but her grin was wide and lively.  The Groke rubbed her frosty fingers over Snufkin's toes, her tail lashing back and forth with excitement.  She made a chesty, approving noise, and Snufkin recognized the tones as matching those in the opening of his song.  Beaming up at him, the Groke reached for his face with her free paw.  Snufkin shut his eyes against her touch, and the song ended.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>